


Dethdogs

by seashadows



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:42:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seashadows/pseuds/seashadows
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles Ofdensen's boys are more trouble than they're worth, but he loves them anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dethdogs

**Author's Note:**

> I don't own the photos used for the Dethdogs. Ganked from Google.

  
As he did every morning, Charles Ofdensen woke up to the feeling of a hot, wet tongue in his ear. And, as usual, it belonged to a dog.   
  
“Good morning, [Pickles](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3FTO6EjRbe4/Soz38EmM2GI/AAAAAAAATUg/3CHiG6HXMyQ/s640/hungarian-puli.jpg),” he yawned, rolling over onto his back and dislodging the tongue. Pickles whimpered and pawed at his shoulder. “ _No_. No paws.” Pickles’s paw migrated from his shoulder to his neck, scratching at the skin with sharp nails. “ _Ow_. Stop it.”   
  
As he sat up, Pickles took his paw off his neck, instead cuddling into his lap and sticking a cold, wet nose into Charles’s stomach. “Yes,” Charles said, smiling and petting the Puli’s rough dreads. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you? Yes. You’re my good boy, even if you don’t stay in your own bed at night.” He reached down, moved a few dreads aside, and scratched behind Pickles’s ears, eliciting a happy yip.   
  
Pickles was the first dog who had come to live with him, and sometimes – like now – Charles thought that Pickles was the closest to him. He loved all of his boys, infuriating as they could be, but he had raised and trained Pickles when he was barely three years into his first law job. Eight years later, there were four more dogs and a few more gray hairs, but in the morning, sometimes it was just Charles and Pickles, like it used to be. Charles and his scruffy red-gold puppy, both of them older now.   
  
Neither of them wiser, maybe, but that was open to interpretation. Being around the other boys had certainly made Pickles even livelier than he otherwise would have been.   
  
Just then, as though Charles’s thoughts alone were enough to summon them, two other dogs padded into the room then: one on giant flopping paws that were too big even for his oversized body, and one with his long nose held high above his head. “Good morning, [Nathan](http://amipourlavie.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/great_dane.jpg),” Charles said, smiling at them. “Hello, [Skwisgaar](http://a-z-animals.com/media/animals/images/470x370/afghan_hound.jpg).”   
  
Nathan let out a loud bark and immediately jumped onto Charles’s bed, launching himself into Charles’s lap and making the springs squeak loud enough to drown out Pickles’s indignant bark of retort. He then wriggled excitedly against Charles and pressed his muzzle against his chin, licking his mouth and jaw.   
  
“Nathan, _no_ ,” Charles sputtered, just as he did most mornings. “Nathan - _no_ tongue - _ack!_ ” Nathan didn’t listen to him, of course. Instead, he kept on licking Charles’s face, snorfling at his nose and cheeks and even temporarily obscuring his vision. Meanwhile, a weight on Charles’s feet told him that Skwisgaar had curled up on the end of the bed, and probably gone to sleep. Getting away from the dogs was going to be a doozy.   
  
“Boys, let me up,” he said, and pushed Nathan’s head away from his face. “I have to get up if I’m going to make you breakfast.” None of the dogs moved. “Do you want some _food?_ ”   
  
Even Skwisgaar looked up at the sound of the word. Pickles jumped off the bed and barked, while Nathan gave Charles’s face another lick before bounding over to Pickles. Damn dog was so high-energy that it gave Charles a headache a good sixty-five percent of the time. “Yeah, I know you boys want food. You want a _nice_ breakfast. Where the hell are Toki and William?”   
  
The dogs couldn’t tell him, of course, but when Charles got into the kitchen, he found [Toki](http://cdn-www.dailypuppy.com/media/dogs/anonymous/lucy_labradoodle_01.jpg_w450.jpg) sleeping under the dining table and [Murderface](http://www.vitaminsforpitbulls.com/images/english_bulldog_1.jpg) still nowhere in sight. He smiled and bent down to rub Toki’s ears, scratching them gently when Toki blinked sleepily at him. At only a year old, Toki was really still a puppy, and tended to hold on to the habits he’d developed during his months in an abusive household; sleeping under a solidly protective surface was one of them.   
  
“Morning, Toki,” he said. “Who’s hungry?” One of the dogs – Nathan, judging by the size – nudged a flank against his ass. “Nathan, knock it off. I’ll feed you in a minute. Toki?” He stood up gestured him to go towards the other dogs. “Breakfast time.”   
  
The doorbell rang then, making Charles stub his toe hard against a table leg, and was almost immediately drowned out by a chorus of ear-splitting barks and clicks as the dogs ran over to the front door. Charles, for his part, couldn’t reprimand the boys just yet; he was too busy grabbing his foot and swearing. “Oh _shit_ , fucking _table_ , I’m gonna…ow…motherfucking _kill_ something. Godfuckingdammit!”   
  
His swears might not have been the most original, but they were powerful enough to make the dogs pause in their barking as he walked (and limped) over to the door. “ _Hello_ ,” he said, pulling the door open. Who the fuck rang his doorbell at six in the morning?   
  
He got his answer when Murderface barreled into his legs as soon as he opened the door. The answer to the logical next question was also provided by the frowning face approximately a foot above his in the doorway. “Good morning, Mr. Selatcia,” Charles said. “What can I do for you?”   
  
If it were anyone else, he would have figured that raspy tone came from the fact that it was ass o’clock in the morning, but he’d learned from experience that his exceptionally creepy next-door neighbor sounded like that all the time. The voice only made him seem creepier. “Mr. Ofdensen,” Selatcia said, “your dog has destroyed my recycling again. This cannot continue.”   
  
Great. This again. “Mr. Selatcia, we’ve been over this,” Charles said, trying not to sound as if he wanted to make some serious pain happen. With his luck, Selatcia would just deck him if he tried. “If you keep your recycling bins on _your_ side of the property line, my dogs can’t get to them.”   
  
Selatcia ignored him. Charles figured it was more of an unconscious intimidation thing than a real attempt to be rude; if he were that much over six feet tall, he’d probably feel free to ignore anyone he wanted to ignore, too. “They must not be allowed outside to destroy it.”   
  
Charles wasn’t about to go into the disturbing implications of Selatcia’s weird phrasing this early in the morning. More than likely, the guy was just off his nut. “If I don’t let them have the doggie door, then they _will_ poop inside the house when I’m gone. Do you want a pissed-off neighbor _and_ five crazy dogs next door? I’m telling you, that’s what you’d get if they stayed inside.”   
  
Selatcia just stared at him for a long second, giving Charles the extremely uncomfortable feeling that the man had some kind of X-ray vision and was looking inside his pants for evidence of destructive dog-owning tendencies. He wouldn’t put it past him; hell, he didn’t even know what Selatcia _did_ all day. “They have caused mayhem and terror inside your house,” he finally croaked. “They will not destroy my recycling.”   
  
Honestly? Charles wasn’t about to keep standing there, letting the cold morning air and his bare nipples make a total ass of him in front of a neighbor who kept ignoring property law and then complaining about it. “You’re going in circles again, Mr. Selatcia,” he said bluntly. “Look. I have to feed my dogs. All I can say is _please_ keep your recycling on your own side of the electric fence, and don’t blame William for following his instincts if you don’t. Toki, _stop_ it.” His dogs were freaked out enough by Selatcia that they weren’t trying to run out the door and into the street, but Toki had started whimpering loudly.   
  
“Mr. Ofdensen, your dogs are a menace,” Selatcia said. Oh, that was pretty fucking ironic. “I will wait. I will not call the city services to complain about the danger they pose.”   
  
“That’s nice of you,” Charles replied, rolling his eyes. He had to cut the guy off at the pass now, or otherwise he would end up listening to Selatcia make thinly-veiled threats about his dogs for the next few hours. “I have to go to work, Mr. Selatcia. If you have any more complaints about my dogs, take it up with me in writing.” All the better, to have records of the crazy. Not for nothing did he keep getting promoted at the law firm; it wasn’t for his looks, that was for damn sure, since most of the other higher-ups were practically fossilized.   
  
Well, maybe it was his looks - but no one could say he didn’t have the brains to back them up.Nor could anyone say that he didn’t have the balls necessary to slam the door before his neighbor could get another word in.   
  
“Come on, boys,” he said, starting back towards the kitchen. “The asshole is all gone now. Yes, he is. It’s food time now.”   
  
Breakfast consisted of dry cereal for him and dry food for the dogs. He’d learned the hard way that if he gave them canned food in the morning, he’d come home to an extremely malodorous house – at least if they got gaseous in the evening, he could shoo them outside and do damage control before the smell had time to percolate.   
  
As usual, Skwisgaar stuck his nose in Toki’s food bowl once he had finished his own breakfast. “Hey,” Charles said sharply from the table. “ _No_ , Skwisgaar. That’s Toki’s food, not your food.” Skwisgaar looked up at him and growled. “ _No_ growling. Bad.” Toki wasn’t used to defending himself, which wasn’t unexpected given his background, so Charles had to do it for him.   
  
Nathan, who for the past thirty seconds or so had had his head stuck in his water bowl, looked up at the reprimand and trotted over to Charles, laying his head on his thigh and dripping water all over his pajama pants. “Hello again, Nathan.” Charles rubbed his head. “Yes. Yes, I love you, too. You’re a good boy.” Nathan wagged his tail, as did Murderface, who had finished his food and was now curled up on the floor like a fat neck pillow.   
  
The sight of the bulldog reminded Charles that the boys probably needed a bathroom run before he had to go to work. The kitchen clock said 6:37; he didn’t have to be at work until 7:30 today, so that was enough time to take his dogs for a run around the block before he dressed and shaved. Allowing half an hour or so to drive to the firm, he had plenty of time.   
  
“All right!” he exclaimed, standing up and clapping his hands. “Who wants to go for a _walk?_ ”   
  
The boys reacted exactly as well as they usually did – which is to say Nathan and Toki jumped up immediately, Pickles shook his dreads and barked, Skwisgaar gave him a disdainful look, and William didn’t even get up off the floor. “ _Walk_ ,” Charles repeated. “Up, Skwisgaar. Up, Murderface. We’re going to go get some exercise.” Murderface whimpered. “Yes, William, you need exercise. You know you’re a workaholic when your dogs get less exercise than you do.” Or was it the other way around? Whatever; it was too early for coherent statements.   
  
Charles threw on a ratty old blue sweatshirt, grabbed the leashes that hung from a hook by his desk, and snapped his fingers. “Come on, boys. Walkies time.” Thank god no one was around to hear him use that word.   
  
It took some dragging to get Skwisgaar and Murderface off the floor, but eventually the strength of Charles’s arms won out over their willingness to resist him tugging on their necks, and the six of them set out for their walk. Of course, almost immediately, Murderface dragged them all to the house on the other side of Charles’s and pooped on Dick Knubbler’s lawn.   
  
“Wonderful,” Charles said, only half-sarcastically. The more William pooped now, the less he would have to worry about it later; at least Dick didn’t throw a fuss when the boys chose his lawn to do their business. As Charles cleaned up after William, Toki ran behind a bush and did his business there.   
  
“Good boy,” Charles told him with a smile. Toki’s first owners had been physically (and, presumably, emotionally) abusive to him; it stood to reason that a little praise for small accomplishments would do him good. “That’s a good – stop _pulling_ , Pickles.” He looked over in the direction of the tugging, only to see Pickles peeing on a fire hydrant. “Great, Pickles,” he said. “Really ostentatious.”   
  
Pickles lowered his leg and barked happily. “Well,” Charles sighed, “at least it’s not on Dick’s lawn. Boys, time to – oh, dear _god_ , Nathan. Stop it.” He tugged on the leash, but Nathan didn’t even pause; one leg lifted over his head, he was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk, licking himself. “Knock it _off_ , Nathan!”   
  
Someone yanked on a leash, tugging Charles sharply in the other direction. Looking down, he saw that Skwisgaar was straining towards the house. Apparently, he wanted in. “If you’re not going to do anything, why did I drag you out here?” Charles asked him. The only answer he got was a haughty look, but he could hardly expect anything less from an Afghan Hound.   
  
“Oh, hey there, Charlie!” A bang of the front door accompanied Knubbler’s way-too-cheerful shout. Charles didn’t know how Knubbler managed to stay so perky at six-thirty in the morning, but he suspected some kind of drug was involved; the man’s eyes _were_ usually a little bloodshot, after all. “Taking your boys out for a walk? That’s good.”   
  
“Yeah, well, if I just let them run around the yard, they’ll go stir-crazy,” Charles said with a shrug. “They hate the electric fence. How’s your morning been, Dick?”   
  
“Well, heh, I don’t remember,” Knubbler chuckled. No – giggled. “I probably took a shower, ‘cause my hair’s kinda wet. Hey, Charlie! You take a shower yet this morning?”   
  
That was a weird question, but Knubbler was a weird person anyway. “Not yet.” He’d probably skip it today, since the only parts of him the dogs had been fouling up with their saliva were his face and ears. Sometimes, they managed to nuzzle under the covers and lick his armpits. “Great talking to you, Dick, but I have to run. If I stand here too long, the boys’ll start fidgeting and make me drop this.” He held up his trusty bag-o-excrement (guaranteed to get him out of any awkward situation with any neighbor, guaranteed; William deserved his thanks sometimes) and gestured towards his trash can.   
  
“Okay. The law’s not gonna write itself, right?” Knubbler bent down to get the newspaper off his front steps. “I’ll talk to you later, ‘kay, b – Charlie? I gotta work. Yeah. Gotta produce some music.”   
  
“Good for you.” If Knubbler was actually a music producer for anything other than some backyard garbage-can pseudo-label, Charles would eat his own tighty-whities. And yes, he was referring to the pair he used as a dishrag. “Talk to you later, Dick. Come on, boys. Inside.” He whistled once; Nathan’s ears perked up immediately. “Come on. Inside!”   
  
All right, so it hadn’t really been much of a walk, but Knubbler on one of his chatty days was a little more than Charles could deal with after Selatcia. He’d just take the boys out after work, that was all – maybe to the big, grassy field by the local middle school. They liked the school…well, they liked playing with the kids who kicked a soccer ball around after hours. Murderface liked to pee on the school proper.   
  
It was 6:48 by the time he got back into the house. Damn. He didn’t have time to stick around and make sure Skwisgaar actually went before he left, since he was occasionally a little snooty about using the doggie door. What he could possibly have to turn his nose up about, Charles didn’t know, but turn it up he did. “Work time, boys,” he said, unclipping them and hanging the leashes back up. “I gotta go make some money so I can buy you more chew toys and bacon – fuck, I shouldn’t have said that. Forget I said anything, Nathan.” The Great Dane’s ears had immediately pricked up again at the sound of the word ‘bacon.’   
  
It took him ten minutes to get dressed. Usually, he only took five, but the mention of bacon had made Nathan start a chorus of barking among the dogs, which made Charles whack his head on his tie rack and drop his favorite tie. The injuries he endured for his boys should have earned him a medal a long time ago.   
  
He gave them all kisses before he left, of course. Toki freaked every time he thought he wasn’t loved, and…well, if Toki got something, then all of the boys had to have it, too.   
  
That was just one of the reasons Charles loved them.   
  


~

  
  
From behind closed blinds, Cardinal Augustine Ravenwood stared at the small, blue-painted house next door. “Are you certain that they pose a danger, Selatcia?” he asked. “Of course, if they do, they must be stopped,” he added quickly, “but the Bible says nothing about canines.”   
  
“I stepped in poop on the way up here,” General Crozier interjected. “The Bible might not say anything, but I do. You _need_ to put in a complaint to city services and have them _taken care of_.”   
  
“Patience, General Crozier,” Selatcia said, dealing out cards. “The dogs do not need to be disposed of. Not now.”   
  
“There’s shit on my shoes,” Crozier said.   
  
Selatcia looked at him. It wasn’t a long look, or a particularly venomous one, but it still had approximately the same effect as a tranquilizer dart on everyone present. “You will find a pooper scooper in the hallway closet,” he said. “We will wait.”   
  
“Fine. Gimme five minutes.” Crozier stood up and examined the bottom of one shoe. “Ugh.”   
  
“Maybe a leash law would work,” Senator Stampingston suggested. He took a sip from the glass of brandy in front of him – from his own flask, of course. Selatcia wasn’t one to provide drinks, and none of them had ever asked.   
  
“The dogs are held prisoners by an electric fence,” Selatcia rasped. “They are restrained by a leash when they are outside the confines of the fence. But a leash will not hold them forever. One day, they will break their chains, and.” He broke off; it wasn’t a pause, but more like punctuation. “The petapocalypse will begin.”   
  


~

  
  
About halfway through the afternoon (not that the dogs could tell time, but it was maybe halfway between their noon run-around from Dick Knubbler and DINNERTIME), Toki came running through the doggie door like there was a thunderstorm after his ass. “Gets inside! I sees de mean kitties!” he barked frantically.   
  
“We’re already inside, dumbass,” Pickles replied, rolling over onto his back and exposing his belly to a sunbeam. “Whoa, dood. Why d’ya smell like oatside?”  
  
“De mean kitty sprays me!” Toki spun around in a circle, chasing his curly, plumed tail and yipping when he managed to bite the end. “Wit’ a stinky stuffs! She does dat and I pees in de yard and I runs inside.”   
  
“You took a pissch? _Whoa_ , Toki. What happened?” Murderface asked as he ambled into the kitchen. “You get schprayed by a schkunk?”   
  
Toki lay down and rested his head on his paws. “Noes. I gets sprays by de mean kitties what wants to eats me.”   
  
“Yeah. That’sh a schkunk, idiot.” Murderface shook his head, making his jowls shake, too. “Wasch it black with white schtripesh?”   
  
“Ja,” Toki said. He got up, turned around three times in his warm spot, and plunked back down again. “Ams was a goil kitties. She said her name was Carolines, and she wanteds to make wit’ me de babies! So I runs and she sprayeds me.”   
  
“A schkunk tried to _hump_ you?” Murderface said. “That’sch weird. Schkunksh ain’t dogsch.”   
  
Just then, Toki’s ears perked up. “Charlie’s homes!” he yelped. “I hears him’s car! He’s homes, wowee!”   
  
“Charlie’s home?” Pickles scrambled up to a standing position.   
  
“Oh god, Charlie’s home!” Nathan ran in from Charles’s bedroom, where he had been asleep in a blanket nest on his bed. “He’s home! Oh god! We get to have _food!_ ”   
  
“Gahd, Nathan, shut yer face,” Pickles barked back. “We don’t even know if he _braht_ any food. He prahbably didn’t, so quit it, okey?”   
  
Skwisgaar was the only one who didn’t jump up when Charles’s key finally turned in the back-door lock, but Skwisgaar was kind of a dick who just liked to sleep and eat other people’s food (especially Toki’s). As usual, Nathan jumped on him when he came inside and licked his face thoroughly, showing his _brutal_ love for Awesome Food Guy Charles and checking what he had for lunch.   
  
Charles didn’t like being licked today, though. In fact, he didn’t seem to be happy with the dogs at all, especially at Toki; he kept yelling about the smell of the mean kitty who wasn’t actually a kitty, and then he grabbed Toki and put him in the guest room. With the door locked.   
  
Of course, Skwisgaar didn’t like that one bit. He tried to be a standoffish douchebag, but he liked Toki (well, if _liked_ meant ‘tried to hump’, then he liked him), and everyone knew it. “You lets him out!” he growled, clawing at the guest-room door. “You lets him out, you no-hairs-no-foods dick!” Then he bit Charles’s ankle.   
  
Charles responded by putting the bark collar on him, so that whenever Skwisgaar barked, he got a faceful of really, _really_ nasty-smelling stuff that Charles said was called citronella. It messed up his fur and made his nose wrinkle, but he was outside the door and Toki was _inside_ the door, so he kept barking. And barking.   
  
He barked as Charles changed clothes to go to a big meeting. He kept barking when Charles left and Toki scratched on the inside of the guest-room door, wanting to be let out – “I smells all goods, Skwisgaar! I wants you to smells it!”   
  
“Hey,” Nathan finally growled at him. “ _Hey_. Stop fuckin’ barking. My ears hurt and I want some food.”   
  
Skwisgaar looked at him. “You can barks, too,” he said. “Ams de free countries.”   
  
Nathan flopped his tongue out of his mouth and panted happily. “Dude,” he said, “that’s _brutal_. I’m gonna wake up the whole neighborhood!”   
  
Soon, all the dogs were barking – except for Toki, who just yapped. Toki was a puppy, though; he’d grow into his bark.   
  
Well…probably. If he kept yapping, then Nathan was going to kill him and have Charles make him into yummy hamburgers.   
  


~

  
  
“Gentlemen,” said Senator Stampingston, “we _must_ do something about these dogs.”   
  
“ _What?_ ” said General Crozier. He tilted his head and knocked himself in the temple with the palm of one hand, then twisted a finger in his ear. “I can’t hear you. Those damn dogs keep barking their heads off!”  
  
Mr. Selatcia said nothing; he just shuffled his hand of cards and glanced around the table.   
  
“ _Yes!_ ” Stampingston shouted. “The _dogs!_ Don’t you have some kind of connection with the city police? Or Ravenwood – he could get them given away.”   
  
“Who said my name?” The front door opened as Ravenwood came in from his smoke break, bald head exposed to the afternoon air. “Is this about the dogs? I believe that they should be taken away _soon_ , for the health of this neighborhood.” He rubbed an ear.   
  
“Cardinal,” said Crozier, “you have pee on your foot.”   
  
Ravenwood looked down at the stain. His eyes widened.   
  
Then he ran over to one of Selatcia’s potted plants and, both literally and figuratively, started puking his guts up.   
  
“Holy…!” That was Crozier’s contribution. He stared at the convulsing cardinal, open-mouthed, the beer he’d brought with him forgotten even as it warmed on the table. “I don’t think that’s food.”   
  
“Gentlemen, I believe that Cardinal Ravenwood is currently vomiting his intestines,” said Stampingston. His facial expression didn’t change, even with the disgusting severity of the announcement; it never did, and Crozier and Ravenwood privately agreed that he probably had Botox at least weekly.   
  
Or…well, they _had_ agreed. Crozier was probably going to have to keep that opinion to himself from now on. Losing a comrade was an occupational hazard in the military, but he’d figured that since Ravenwood was clergy, he was safe. “Great,” he grumbled. “Now we don’t have a fourth player. Mr. Selatcia, what are we gonna do now? Play Euchre?”   
  
“I will call my golf friend, Vater Orlaag,” Selatcia croaked. The sentence was the first he’d spoken in half an hour. “And I will make a…special call to another friend.”   
  
“A dogcatcher?” Stampingston asked.   
  
“No.” Selatcia lowered his head, eyes boring into Stampingston’s and Crozier’s under their tufts of furrowed, thick gray eyebrows. “The Metal Masked Dogcatcher. And then we will wait for him to arrive.”   
  
“They’re not gonna stop barking in the meantime,” Crozier protested. “Are you sure we can’t just –“   
  
“ _No_.” Selatcia speared him with a look. “We will wait for the darkness to consume the dogs next door.”   
  


~

  
  
An hour later, Toki was still scratching at the door and barking his head off, letting his yips join the other dogs’ protests. “I hungries!” he yipped. “Charlie forgots to feeds me!”   
  
“Dood, we’ll git ya out,” Pickles promised. “But he didn’t fergit. It jest ain’t time to eat yet.”   
  
“My stomach ams hurts me,” Toki said. Behind the door, he curled up on the guest-room carpet and put his head on his paws. “I wants some foods.”   
  
“You’re just a puppy,” Nathan told him. “That’s why you’re so fuckin’ hungry. Except…yeah, I’m fuckin’ hungry, too!” He barked a few times, loudly. “Hey, Toki, what’d that sound like? Did I sound like I’m hungry? Maybe that dude next door’s gonna come feed us.”   
  
“Knubblers am dildos,” Skwisgaar said, scratching the door again. “Pfft. He stinks like de smoke.”   
  
“Hey, I like how he smells!” Pickles protested. “Whenever I smell it, I start feelin’ all happy. The feck keinda dog are you, Skwisgaar? You don’t like good smells?”   
  
Skwisgaar ‘pfft’ed at him again. “ _You_ ain’ts de real dog, Pickle. You looks like a dirty brooms and you stinks all de time.”   
  
“He’sch got a point, Picklesch,” Murderface said. Pickles nipped his ear. “OW! Schtop biting me, you dick!”   
  
“Heys!” Toki yelped, interrupting them. “Guys? Dere’s a big guy out-to-sides of de window heres! I barks at him? I wants to barks at him!”   
  
“Whoa, yeah. I can smell him!” Nathan sniffed the air and flopped his tongue out of his mouth. “He smells weird! _Hey_ , weird-smelling guy!” he barked. “Get outta here! This is _my_ fuckin’ house!”   
  
“Keeps barking!” Toki was frantic now; his eyes were wide, whites showing around the blue, and his back was stiff. “He’s knocking on de windows! Oh…oh _noes!_ He brokeds de windows!” A sharp sound of breaking glass proved that he was right. “I can’ts protect de house when dat guy’s in heres!”   
  
“You don’ts protect de house anys-way,” Skwisgaar said. “Hey! Dat guy! You gets out of dis house and leaves! It ain’ts your house.”   
  
The weird-smelling guy was a big man with a metal face – at least the top half of it was. Or maybe he was wearing something that made his face look like it was metal. “I jumps on him!” Toki announced. “I licks him!” Maybe he could lick him until the guy made him stop, like Charles. Tensing his strong back legs, he leaped onto the man’s chest, knocking him over.   
  
“Git ‘im, little dood!” Pickles barked in encouragement upon hearing the crash. “Lick th’hell outta him!”   
  
“Oh, god, that’sch gay,” Murderface whimpered. “I’m schurrounded by gay dogsch.”   
  
“I licks him!” Toki said again. He jumped onto the man’s chest and started licking his face as sloppily as he could. “He tastes funnies! Like a real bigs quarter what I swallows!” The metal part of the man’s face slid aside as he kept licking, revealing…a regular face. “Wowee! He gots a regular face, too.”   
  
Then, as Toki leaned in to lick him again, the man started coughing. His face screwed up like Charles’s did when Nathan rolled in poop and then rolled on his bed. “Guys?” Toki barked. “I don’ts think he likes de way I smells.”   
  
“He doeschn’t like schkunk schtink?” Murderface asked as the man started running around the room, gagging. “But that’sh the bescht schtink there ish!”   
  
“ _Nei_ ,” Toki replied. “I don’ts think he likes it. He’s runnings, and now he’s – oh _noes!_ He’s running at de doors! He’s _breaking de doors!_ ”   
  
“What do you mean, he’s breaking the - _holy shit!_ ” Nathan, as well as all the other dogs, jumped back as the guest-room door came off its hinges and the huge, metal-masked man burst through. “That’s one big motherfucker!”   
  
Skwisgaar rushed forward, throwing himself against Toki and tripping the masked man as he did. “Toki, ams you okays?” he asked, then paused. “You’s a big dildos, littles Toki. Pfft, you can’ts get out from intosides a door. Dat’s real stupids.”   
  
“Ja!” Toki barked, letting Skwisgaar lick his muzzle. “Dat was one such big guy, Skwisgaar. Hey, where he ams goes?”   
  
“He’s goin’ oat th’door,” Pickles said, pointing his nose towards the huge man, who had scrambled to his feet and was frantically yanking at the front door handle. “Hey, doods?”   
  
“Yeah?” Nathan said.   
  
“Let’s folla him an’ bark a laht.”   
  
“ _Fuck_ , yeah!” Nathan wagged his tail. “That’s a _great_ idea, Pickles. Hey, big guy!” He chased after the masked man out the open door. “Come on, guys! Chase this guy with me!”   
  
Half a second later, the doorway was filled with one very large man in a metal mask, and five dogs.   
  


~

  
  
The meeting had gone fairly well, at least by Charles’s standards. One of his clients was involved in a will contest that had gone overtime, and he’d had to come back for a meeting with a couple of solicitors, the client in question, and the man’s four siblings. More than a few profanities had been exchanged, but he’d spent the better part of the past week involved in this damn case, and finally, _finally_ , it was finished – so he didn’t give a flying fuck about profane relatives.   
  
However, he did give a fuck about the fact that his front door was open, and that – “Holy shit!” He slammed down on the brake and kicked in the parking brake, then shut the car down and yanked his keys out of the ignition. “Hey!” he yelled, running across the lawn. “Who the fuck are you?”   
  
“Your dogs are a _menace!_ ” the man growled, his voice frighteningly gravelly. “They need to be terminated immediately.” He stalked across the grass towards Charles, body tensed – Charles had fenced in college, and he knew when someone was about to try to fight him.   
  
“Goddammit,” he muttered, and ducked under the man’s massive arm to punch him in the solar plexus. The man roared and swung at him; Charles ducked, but the masked man’s fist caught the tip of his nose. He could feel it bleeding immediately, but when some asshole was trying to kill his dogs, he honestly didn’t care about something as trivial as a bloody nose.   
  
He grabbed the man’s arm and _twisted_. Nothing snapped, but it made the attacker pause; that was just enough time for Charles to knee him in the groin. That did it. The man staggered, then fell heavily onto the lawn.   
  
“Those are _my_ dogs you’re fucking with,” Charles snarled. He planted a foot on the man’s stomach and pressed down. “Now are you going to pay for whatever you broke in my house, or am I going to have to call the police?” His heel twisted a circle into the muscle.   
  
The big man coughed. “I don’t want the police involved,” he said. “Fine. I broke a window and…the door hinges, I think.” Charles dug his heel in deeper. “How - _ugh_ \- how much do you want?”   
  
“Give me whatever you have,” Charles said. “ _Now_ , or I call nine-one-one.”   
  
“Fine.” The man dug in his pants and pulled out a handful of bills. Charles wasn’t surprised; jackasses like this, ones who thought it was okay to break into someone’s house and harass their dogs (even now, Toki was shaking) usually took whatever cash they could find. He’d seen more than a few when he went to court.   
  
“Good,” he said, taking the money and shoving it into his pocket. “Now get the hell out of here. Fuck with me again and I’ll kill you.” He took his foot off the man’s stomach, making his shirt ride up and revealing a huge, purple-blue bruise where he’d pressed down.  
  
Coughing, breathing in huge gulps, the man staggered to his feet and swayed, then threw up in the grass. “A menace,” he gasped. “Fucking _skunk_ dogs.”   
  
“ _Go_.”   
  
The attacker didn’t need to be told again. Bent double with both hands on his stomach, he started running down the block.   
  
Charles watched him until he had reached the end of his line of vision, at least two blocks away. “Motherfucker,” he said, and dropped to his knees. “Boys? Come here. Did that man hurt you?”   
  
The dogs couldn’t answer him, of course, but the speed at which they ran over to him was all the response he needed. “ _Good_ boys,” he said, stroking Skwisgaar’s silky ears with one hand and rubbing Nathan’s back with the other. “Good dogs, chasing the mean man. You know what I’m going to do now?” Pickles nosed his wrist. “That’s right. I’m calling the police anyway. I got a picture of him on my phone.”   
  
“Charlie!” a familiar voice yelled, making Charles look up. Knubbler was standing on his lawn, hands on his red shorts-clad hips. “What the hell just happened?”   
  
“I think I was just robbed,” Charles called back. “Dick, can you come over and watch the boys? I got a pretty good picture of the guy, and I want to call the police.”   
  
“Sure, b – Charlie.” Knubbler jogged over the length of his lawn and onto Charles’s; the edges of his too-big shorts flapped as he ran. “ _Whoa_. One of your boys get near a skunk?”   
  
“Toki,” Charles answered. Toki looked up at the sound of his name and barked. “He probably thought it was a cat.” _Skunk_ , the masked man had said. “You know what? I think that actually chased off whoever that was.”   
  
Knubbler grinned. “You hear that, Toki? You saved your daddy!” He rubbed Toki’s head, seeming not to care about the stink. “You wanna put him in my tub, Charlie? I got a whirlpool bath and some tomato juice. Nyeheheheh.”   
  
God, his laugh was weird. But he was a neighbor, and he wanted to be his friend – and right now, that was what Charles and his boys needed. “All right,” he said, smiling and getting to his feet. The grass stains would come out easily enough, if he got the suit dry-cleaned soon. “Thanks, Dick.”   
  
Knubbler’s grin went up a few watts. “Sure, Charlie. C’mon, puppies.” He gave Pickles’s head a rub. “Want me to feed ‘em, too?”   
  
“Please.” There was a burglar on the loose, he had a broken window and a broken door, and the dogs would probably keep him up all night with their traumatized barking…but at least they would have their food.   
  
Just like they always did.


End file.
